Frill

The frill, a thin fold of skin that usually hangs like a cape, can be 30 cm (12 inches) across when erect. These lizards move them up and down to communicate with one another. When threatened, the animal raises it frill, opens it mouth wide, hisses and stands upright.

Mouth

The tongue and mouth are pink or yellow. Frilled Lizards open their mouths wide when they flare their frills.

Modern Myth

The creators of Jurassic Park were inspired by the Frilled Lizard when they designed their version of Dilophosaurus, the spitting dinosaur. But we don't know if Dilophosaurus had a frill, and the Frilled Lizard doesn't have venom, much less spit it.

Fast Facts

Meet the Family

The Frilled Lizard is one of the odder members of its large family, Agamidae, a group of 420 species sometimes called the chisel-toothed lizards. Unlike human teeth, "chisel teeth" are fused to the jawbones and may last a lifetime. Chisel teeth appear in 80-million-year-old Mongolian fossil lizards.